Over the next six days (August 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17) set aside time to read and meditate on 1 Timothy. Read one chapter per day over and over. Contemplate on how Christians are to relate to their riches in the household of God and journal regarding the implications for your life. Here are a few verses from 1 Timothy and some commentary to launch your lectio divina.
Tell the rich in this world not to be arrogant and not to put their hope upon the uncertainty of wealth, but rather upon God who supplies us with all things richly for our enjoyment. Tell them to do good work, to be wealthy in noble deeds, to be generous in giving, to be sharers of possessions, thereby storing up for themselves a noble foundation for the future, so they can lay hold of real life. 1 Timothy 6:17-19
[Commentary] “…the way in which humans dispose of their possessions is itself intimately connected to their self-disposition before God. Paul had in the previous section [1 Tim 6:2b-10] stressed the potential for possessions to deceive and entrap humans. Now he turns to their positive potential. Paul wants the rich to hope not in the uncertainty of riches, but in God, “who supplies us with all things richly for our enjoyment” (6:17). Two things should be noted in this remarkable statement.The first is the understanding of God as richly beneficient in every respect (ta panta) “to us.” This affirmation of God’s generosity and unstinting giving of gifts resembles the characterization of God in James 1:5 as the one who “gives to all generously and without grudging.” Part of the proper perception of material possessions, therefore, is that they are all gifts from God. They have no power separate from God and can offer no life or security on their own. Like us, they are simply creatures. If we pursue them as the source of life, we destroy them and ourselves. But if we see them as gifts from God, they they become an occasion for thanksgiving.
This brings us to the second part of the statement: God has given us all things richly, “for our enjoyment” (apolausis). Paul here recognizes the inherent goodness in all things that God gives through creation. We are reminded of the strong view of creation that runs through this letter, found, above all, in the declaration that God created things “to be received with thanksgiving” and that nothing created by God as good was to be rejected, but was to be received with thanksgiving (4:3-4). Although Paul will immediately turn to the fruitful use to which possessions can be put–thus shading apolausis in the direction of “fruit” or “benefit”–it is well to pause and appreciate one of the few places in the New Testament that approves of simple pleasure taken in things.
…within Paul’s theological understanding of creation, freedom is seen as the capacity to give away possessions to others with no diminishment to the self. Paul could scarcely be more emphatic in his desire that the rich use their possessions just in this way. He uses four separate and roughly equivalent terms in 6:18 to express the same point: they are to “do good work” (agatheorgein), “be wealthy in noble deeds” (ploutein en ergois kalois), “be generous in giving” (eumetadotous), and “be sharers of possessions” (koinonikous). This emphasis takes on particular force coming at the end of a letter which has dealt with the problems of misused wealth. The riches that God has given humans are not for their ostentatious display (2:9-10) or their selfish hoarding (5:4, 8), but are to be used for the common good.
When Paul states the motivation for such sharing of possessions, we glimpse again his sense of possessions as expressing human relationship with God. Sharing wealth will be “storing up for themselves” (6:19). The statement makes sense only within a transcendental, relational framework: God honors those who give away their possessions to others with still greater wealth in God’s own presence. The notion is one that is found frequently in Jewish and early Christian literature: possessions shared in this life lead to spiritual riches in the life to come. Thus the mixed metaphor of “storing up treasure” and “laying a foundation.” Doing good deeds now is the basis for the future reward. The reward, however, is not material, but a share in God’s own life, “so that they can lay hold of real life” (6:19).”
Luke Timothy Johnson in The First and Second Letters to Timothy The Anchor Bible Commentary (New York: Doubleday) 314-315.